XM Satellite to debut two portable players

Handheld radios will store and play MP3 files and those encoded using Windows Media software.
Photos: XM's hybrids

The story "XM Satellite to debut two portable players" published January 3, 2006 at 9:40 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[bobby_brady]

Music industry will try and kill these

eom

[NWLB]

They are hunting wabbits. [sic]

They'll try, and it will blow-up in their faces. Between Sony sneaking spyware and the RIAA suing everything that moves, a backlash will hit at some point. The more they try to stop such devices, the faster people will buy them as they come out, and this will only make them more desired. I saw a device that records SatRad music last week in a mall store which deals with radios as sold in a shack. The last I had read about such devices, they had been pulled because the RIAA had made threats. I suspect the legal types have concluded they can win against the RIAA, and even if they haven't, they hope public pressure will effectively defend manufactures.

Personally, I'd love to have one. I've stopped listening to terrestrial radio since I began taking walks with my MP3-Non-iPod-Player.

NWLB
www.NWLB.net

[ddesy]

Sound quality

Unlike the many people who are interested in these devices, I cannot see a reason to spend $400 on a device with low sound quality. Both XM and Sirius need to increase the bandwidth per stream before I or many serious audiophiles will consider their services worthwhile.

[Rusdude]

Not a priority

I don't think satisfying audiophiles are a major priority right now. "Radio" isn't a medium for audiophiles anyhow, just like most true audiophiles won't listen to MP3's or any other format (some even don't like lossless OGG). Heck, those people complain about audio quality on CD and buy analog equipment.

[208774626618253979477959487856]

Go XM!

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